A Good-for-Nothing

65. Remolded (1)

Translator: Dragon Rider

In the instant when he was struck by lightning, the only thing He Zheng felt was an urge to shout out a four-letter word. ‘It’s written in an elementary school textbook that one should not stand under a tree when there’s a thunderstorm! Why did I do such a stupid thing!’

What made him even more indignant and unreconciled was that he had not yet seen Qiao Peiyu get her just deserts, nor had he achieved fame and showed up those who despised him, and nor had he had sex with Li Zong. ‘What a shame to die just like this.’

“Cutie! Cutie!”

An irritating voice was heard, which He Zheng felt somewhat familiar. In misery, he waved his hand in an attempt to drive away this annoying voice which was bothering him like a fly. Unexpectedly, the voice became even more excited. “He Zheng! Open your eyes, He Zheng! Hurry! Can you hear me?!”

Feeling this irritation unbearable, He Zheng involuntarily twitched his eyelids. For some reason, as if having just been beaten up by someone, he was aching badly all over, but the pent-up foulness that used to be lingering in his chest seemed to have been drained away. He Zheng’s body felt terribly unwell but also unprecedentedly comfortable.

He Zheng wearily opened his mouth and gave a cough. Zu Zhichong hurriedly helped him sit up, grabbed Li Zong’s Thermos bottle and let him take a couple of sips of the water in it.

Xuanqing, who had been standing on the side with a sulky look on his face, slightly widened his eyes and stared fixedly at the bottle in Zu Zhichong’s hand. “That Thermos bottle seems pretty interesting.”

After drinking the water, He Zheng felt a lot better. He pushed Zu Zhichong aside, leaned against the headboard and sat up on his own. As memories of previous events came back to him and gradually grew clearer, He Zheng’s face turned blue. It suddenly struck him what had happened before he passed out. With that, he looked at Xuanqing, a sulky expression on his face. “I remember. You had me sit down under the tree and then I was struck by lightning!”

Sect Leader Zu standing on the side had a rather embarrassed countenance. After letting out a cough, he said, “He Zheng, are you okay?”

He Zheng raised his hand and pressed it against his brow, too weak to make a response. It was Xuanqing who replied to the question, “How could he not be okay? I told you he’s different from you.”

“Sect-uncle! That was beyond the pale! How could you invoke heavenly lightning to strike He Zheng?! Have you any idea what Supt. Li would do if anything happened to him? He’ll hack me in half!” thundered Zu Zhichong who failed to subdue his anger. All others were startled by his reaction.

Sect Leader Zu also believed that Xuanqing had gone too far, but Xuanqing, though nominally his younger sect-brother, was actually his sect-uncle, so his hands were tied even though he intended to mete out punishment. Eventually, he gave Zu Zhichong a token rebuke. “Guard your tongue, brat. Is this how you are supposed to talk to your sect-uncle?”

“Enough. Stop your good-cop, bad-cop routine.” Xuanqing sourly fumbled in his pocket, fished out a little wooden box and tossed it onto He Zheng’s bed. “This is a Purity Pill made in the Hezao Sect. Have him ingest it.”

“Se–Sect-uncle…” Pills made by people of the Hezao Sect were priceless. ‘Sect-uncle really forked out this time,’ Zu Zhichong thought.

“There was foulness inside him. I was merely trying to use the heavenly lightning to expel it from his body purifying his meridians (passages through which vital energy circulates, regulating bodily functions). People like you naturally wouldn’t be able to survive the process. But I didn’t know that inside him there was… which was why the accident happened. Otherwise he wouldn’t have passed out.”

After saying this, with a somewhat regretful expression on his face, he looked out the window gazing at the big tree scorched black by lightning, nostalgia gleaming in his eyes. “It’s a pity this tree ended up like this. My elder sect-brother and I planted it with our own hands. Since that thing inside He Zheng’s body fought against the lightning, this tree became a scapegoat.” Of course, the elder sect-brother Xuanqing mentioned was not Sect Leader Zu but the master shifu of Sect Leader Zu.

It was after hearing these words that the light suddenly dawned on others in the room. Sect Leader Zu couldn’t help but change his countenance. “Younger Sect-brother, are you saying that you were trying to use the heavenly lightning to purge the foulness from He Zheng’s body?”

“What else could I be doing?” Xuanqing looked at Sect Leader Zu as if he were looking at an idiot. “He’s my only apprentice. Why on earth would I get him killed?”

The corner of Zu Zhichong’s mouth involuntarily twitched with embarrassment. ‘If it weren’t for the fact that sect-uncle always plays all kinds of tricks on newly-recruited disciples, these misunderstandings would never have occurred.’

In the past, when Zu Zhichong had been learning skills of manipulating thunder from Xuanqing, he had got struck by lightning every day. Of course, the lightning had not been so powerful. It’d been like an electric shock at the most. With such a long record of prankish doings, no wonder everybody deemed him untrustworthy.

However, they also had never expected that Xuanqing would be able to figure out a method of this kind to resolve the tricky problem of how to expel the foulness left by the yin jade from He Zheng’s body, which had been haunting Li Zong all along.

“Cutie, take this Purity Pill. It’s extremely nourishing.”

He Zheng, who had heard him repeatedly mention something inside his body, didn’t swallow the pill right away. In a confused tone of voice, he queried, “That thing inside my body that you talked about, is it by any chance the small portion of Li Zong’s primordial spirit?”

“What? Supt. Li spared a small portion of his primordial spirit for you?” Sect Leader Zu failed to retain his composure. Splitting primordial spirit involved unimaginably great pain, which no common people could endure.

He Zheng, who was unaware of this, inclined his head.

“Li Zong? Who is he?”

“The incumbent vice superintendent of the Supernaturalism Management Bureau (SMB) as well as the group leader of the first action group of the general office and He Zheng’s marriage partner,” explained Sect Leader Zu.

After a brief trance of surprise, Xuanqing clapped his hands. “I’d been in closed-door cultivation for merely a couple of years, yet SMB had recruited such an amazing talent. A mere small portion of his primordial spirit actually managed to defend against a flash of heavenly lightning. That Li Zong guy is really good to you, kiddo. You’ve got to cherish this relationship. As far as I could tell, that Li Zong guy is–”

Sect Leader Zu let out a meaningful cough and gave a wave of his horsetail whisk. “Younger Sect-brother, it’s getting late. Now that He Zheng is okay, it’s inadvisable for us to stay in his room causing him more disturbance. Let’s take our leave so that he can rest well.”

Xuanqing could tell that Sect Leader Zu had interrupted him intentionally. After a few moments, he came to realize the reason. “It’s my fault.”

It was impertinent to talk about other people’s primary forms or origins.

He Zheng and Zu Zhichong, both unaware of what they were talking about, were thrown into perplexity.